Complete Idiot''''s Guide to Drawing- P36 ppt

Part 7 ➤ Enjoying the Artist’s Life 330 Taking a Stab at a Colored Drawing Use good paper. The best is 140-lb. hot-press watercolor paper, and 90 lb. is fine for sketches. If you foresee adding water to the water-soluble pencil sketch, however, the heavier paper will work better. You will find that you can very naturally grab a handful of colored pencils and start in on a simple arrangement. ➤ That fistful of colors is important. Keep switching colors. ➤ Look at each object and see the range of colors you can use, or the layers you can build up to get a tone and a color. ➤ It takes time, but it’s fun to see the color happen along with the drawing. If you want to learn more about any of the colored media, take a class. They’re fun and you can learn a lot about color and techniques for handling the various media. You’ll be glad you did. Caring for Your Work Generally speaking, use the best materials you can, take yourself and your efforts seriously, present your work simply so it can stand on its own, take care of what you don’t frame, and the archivists and art his- torians of the future will thank you. Caring for your work now means your children, grandchildren, and even your Great-great-great grand- children will have it hanging on their walls (even if they’d rather have it in their closets). The range of compli- mentary colors from warm to cool. Try Your Hand To learn about color, make your- self lots of small tonal charts for the colors you have. Try for gra- dations of tone in an individual color to see what it does, and mixed colors in a variety of tones. Be sure to label the charts so you know how you made a color that you like. 331 Chapter 25 ➤ Express Yourself Whether it’s storage, matting, or framing, here’s some of the best information you’ll find for taking care of your drawings after the drawing’s over. On Storage You’ve spent a lot of time on your work, so treat it right when you’re finished, too. Portfolios keep your work safe, clean, and flat, as it should be. Paper storage drawers are expensive and take up space, but they’re well worth it if you’ve got the money and the room. The important thing is to store your work somewhere where it will be kept in its natural state: flat. In addition, you’ll want to keep it away from damaging sun rays and—even more damaging—water, so next to the garage window or in the basement next to the sump pump are probably not the best places. Matting and Framing Less is more. Simple is as simple does. White is right. Art, or its mat, should not be expected to match the couch. In other words, forget the fuschia or lime green mats to match the flowers on the rug. Your work will look best in a simple white or off-white mat and a simple wood frame that can be more or less the color of the other woods where you plan to hang it. The important thing is that the choices help the drawing; it will find its place on the wall. Turning a New Page: Fine Art Meets Tech Art To: Theovg23@aol.com From: Vincentvgo@hotmail.com Arles is bleak, and the blasted mistral keeps me indoors. I go days without speaking a word to anyone. Thank you for the money. With it, I bought a blazing tangerine iMac, which I am E- mailing you on right now. You were right, the Hotmail account was very simple to set up and free, so I can still survive on five francs a day. —Noah Baumbach, “Van Gogh in AOL,” The New Yorker Can you imagine Vincent with an iMac? He probably would have felt more connected and maybe less troubled. One thing’s for certain—the high-tech world is having an effect on al- most everyone. You can run but you can’t hide, so jump in—you might like it more than you ever imagined. Creating a Virtual Sketchbook Creating a virtual sketchbook is as simple as a few peripherals for your computer—a scanner and a color printer. Which scanner and printer you buy will depend on both your budget and your desires. We leave it to your local big-box computer store to help you with the myriad choices, but we can help you with the basic how-to’s once you’ve got your equip- ment. Try Your Hand Start with a light color for your planning lines. Lavender works very well because it blends into almost any color, and it can become a shadow if the lines are outside your objects as you de- fine them more closely. Part 7 ➤ Enjoying the Artist’s Life 332 Scanning Your Images Most flat scanners are designed to read images up to 8 1 / 2 " × 14", so if your drawings are larg- er than that, you’ll have to scan them in sections. The process may be unwieldy and the re- sults, less-than-desirable reproductions of your drawings. If you’ve been doing a lot of your sketching on the road, though, you probably did so in a small enough sketchbook. Is there a drawing that you particularly like? Start with that one. Tear it carefully from your sketchbook and then lay it flat on your scanner and scan it in (you’ll need your manufac- turer’s instructions for this, and there’s no way we can help you with those). After you’ve scanned your image, the program will ask you to save it. Give it a name you’ll remember it by: “Laguna Sunset” or “Fisherman on the Gila” are two good examples. Now, you can look at your work with the imaging program that came with your scanner, or, if you decide you don’t like that program, another that you’ve downloaded off the World Wide Web. One of the things that you can do, once the image of your drawing is saved to your computer, is manipulate it. That means you can erase those extra scribbles in the cor- ner without fear of going through the paper, or you can add some lines to the fisherman’s face. Don’t get carried away, though—we think real drawing’s a lot more fun than virtual drawing. Printing Your Images You can also print your images, of course, once you’ve scanned them into your computer and saved them. If your drawings are in black and white, you won’t even need a color printer. Even the popular—and inexpensive—bubble-jet printers do a great job with graphic images , which is what your drawing is. E-Mailing with Your Own Art Now that you’ve got it on your computer, you may want to e-mail your art to all your friends. So long as attachments are an option with your particular e-mail, e-mailing your art is simple: Save it as a small .jpg file, add it to your e-mail as an attachment, and then write your note. Poof! Off it goes to annoy one or all of your friends—just like all the jokes that they’ve already seen three times. Creating Your Own Illustrated Home Page To: Theovg23@aol.com From: Vincent2@VanGo.com I’ve started to work again. Check out my home page (and note new address). I designed it with a soft malachite green, a fiery iMac raspberry and a troubled Prussian lilac. I may’ve mastered the brushstroke and HTML, but am a novice with Java. There’s always more to learn. —Noah Baumbach, “Van Gogh in AOL,” The New Yorker There are classes in HTML and Java, two of the most popular Web languages, and there are editorial programs that make it much easier to create a Web site of your own. You can also customize the home page on your Internet program. One example to take a look at is Lauren’s home page, the first page of her Web site at www.laurenjarrett.com. Check it out! 333 Chapter 25 ➤ Express Yourself Creating your own illustrated home page is now as simple as following the instructions your e-mail provider probably has set up on your ISP home page. You don’t even have to know any special programs anymore; the directions will walk you through it all, including how to download the art you’ve scanned and saved onto your own illustrated home page. If you’re interested in something truly professional-looking, however, we’d highly recom- mend a Web designer. You get what you pay for, after all. How to Learn About Drawing on the Computer We may be the old-fashioned, middle-aged artist/teacher types— although we are anything but old-fashioned or middle-aged—but we think you should do your drawing first, and then scan it. You will not really learn to see and draw anything on a computer. Sure, you can make pictures, but it’s just not the same as direct hands-on drawing. Drawing with a mouse or stylus and art pad is not the same as drawing with a pencil. There is not the same connection when you can’t look at the hand that’s drawing and see what’s going on. In addition, the feel of a fine piece of paper and the internal dialogue that you have while you’re relating to your subject, seeing, and drawing are basic pleasures, time for your inner self, and the path to your own unique creative soul. Computer Art Programs You Can Learn Now then, the tirade is over. Computer graphics programs are a dif- ferent story, because they are a way of using your drawings after you have made them, for everything from cards, presents, posters, and all kinds of commercial uses, should you be so inclined. Adobe Photoshop and Quark are two great programs for using art. Lauren uses one or the other for everything, and they’re well worth the time to learn. Photoshop can do anything you can think of to an image, or montage of images, with or without type. Quark is the favored layout program, but you can use PageMaker as well. Adobe Illustrator uses imported art, too, but it has more bells and whistles. There are lots of other art and graphics programs available for Macs or PCs. You can draw with a mouse or a stylus and art pad, using the shapes, colors, graphics, and special effects of programs like Canvas, Paint, Appleworks, and SmartDraw, to name a few. In addi- tion, there are specialized programs, such as AutoCad for architec- tural, landscape, and mechanical rendering; 3-D and special effects programs; and the many programs for Web design and interactives. Take your pick. They all have huge manuals, but you can do it if you try. We admit to being Luddites, and so we stick to the pro- grams that work for us. Artist’s Sketchbook Graphic images on your com- puter are any images that are not text-based. Different images have different suffixes (those are the letters that appear after the dot on a filename, including .jpg, .ipg, .bmp, .gif, and many oth- ers). Graphic images also take up a lot more memory on your computer, but if you’ve got a current model, you won’t need to worry about them using up your available memory for years, if ever. The Art of Drawing Consider private tutoring if you can manage it, or maybe you can share a tutorial with a friend who is also interested, to halve the cost. You will learn much, much faster in a private tutorial. It’s like having a personal trainer! Part 7 ➤ Enjoying the Artist’s Life 334 How to Choose a Computer Art Class There are more and more computer classes out there, with the usual brochures and course descriptions to wade through, including schedules, prices, credits (if you care), and residual computerese (language designed to confuse you) to deal with and experience. Specific courses for complicated graphics programs like Photoshop, Quark, or Illustrator are very helpful places to start. Our advice: ➤ Ask around. Chances are, someone you know (or their cousin) has already taken the course and can comment. ➤ Find out the instructor’s name, and decide if the course material, time, place, and fee are acceptable. ➤ Call the instructor, and make sure you will learn what you want to learn. Our final word on the high-tech world is that it really is a great tool. Think of it that way and you will learn it and use it properly. Lauren’s computer, scanner, printers, copy ma- chine, and fax take up a whole wall in what is otherwise a painter’s studio, but hey, we all have to make a living and the two sides coexist quite well. Lisa’s computer is her main tool, aside from her old Underwood manual and assortment of notebooks and pens for all occa- sions, so it gets to live in her way, smack in the middle of her desk. Do yourself a favor and learn to draw, if that is what you want to do. Then worry about what to do with the drawings later. Chapter 25 ➤ Express Yourself Your Sketchbook Page Try your hand at practicing the exercises you’ve learned in this chapter. Part 7 ➤ Enjoying the Artist’s Life The Least You Need to Know ➤ After all this drawing, you can begin to think about making some personal images or more elaborate pieces. ➤ Color is a wonderful thing. ➤ Take the time to care for your work. It is part of taking yourself seriously. ➤ Simple matting and framing best sets off your work. You don’t have to match the couch. ➤ The high-tech world is upon us. Don’t get caught without it. 336 Chapter 26 The Artist’s Life In This Chapter ➤ Artists on their work ➤ A walk through the museum ➤ Taking the Zen path to drawing ➤ Inspiration is where you find it Paintings must be looked at and looked at and looked at—they, I think, the good ones, like it. They must be understood and that’s not the word either, through the eyes. No talking, no writing, no singing, no dancing will explain them. They are the final, the ‘nth whoopee of sight. A watermelon, a kiss may be fair, but after all have other uses. “Look at that!” is all that can be said before a great painting, at least, by those who really see it. —Charles Demuth In this chapter, we’ll be finding out where artists discover their inspiration—and we’ll let them tell you in their own words. If you draw for any length of time, you’ll soon discover that finding the muse is the easy part; it’s paying attention that’s a bit more difficult. Artists also get their inspiration from other artists, and we’ll be exploring museums as well. With all this artistic inspiration, you’ll be ready to venture out into the world as an artist yourself. Happy trails. The good picture—No one wonders at it more than the one who created it. —John Marin Following the Muse She’s out there all right, that muse the poets are always looking to for help with a rhyme. If you draw regularly and sincerely, she’s bound to pay you a visit, too. She can take different forms, but you will know she’s there and what she wants of you. And you’ll soon discover that you had better pay attention when your muse speaks to you. Part 7 ➤ Enjoying the Artist’s Life 338 Where Artists Find Inspiration Every artist—whether visual, written, musical, or kinesthetic—knows what it’s like to be inspired. While explaining that inspiration is difficult, Lauren has collected a group of won- derful words from artists who really do explain what it’s like to be inspired in their own par- ticular ways. Your own inspiration will be as individual and unique as each of these artists’. My adoration of the great ancients who laid the indestructible, immutable foundations of art for all time shall never dim or tarnish. Their legacy has always been and will always be my spiritual refreshment and renewal. The great ancients worked with God. They interpreted and embodied the glory and wonder of the elements. The moderns work with geometry. —Max Weber True art cannot spring but from naivete. Everyone has been a child, and the true artist is the one that has preserved intact all those treasures of great sensitivity felt in early childhood … Time goes on, but the first songs ever sung by nature always sing on in his soul. —Joseph Stella The most important thing about a river is that it runs downhill. Simple, isn’t it? Art is pro- duced by the wedding of art and nature. Go look at the bird’s flight, the man’s walk, the sea’s movement. They have a way to keep their motion. Nature’s laws of motion have to be obeyed and you have to follow along. The good picture embraces the laws, the best of the old did, and that’s what gives them life. —John Marin Science and art are indeed sisters, but they are very different in their tastes, and it is no easy task to cultivate with advantage the favor of both. —James M. Dunlop What They Have to Say About Their Work Artists are pretty chatty types, for people working in a language without words. In fact, maybe that’s why they’re so talkative. Or maybe they prefer to write about their work so some art historian doesn’t come along and do it for them. Here’s what some of them have to say about their work, and what they believe. My work has been continuously based on a clue seen in nature from which the subject of a picture may be projected. Nature, with its profound order, is an inexhaustible source of supply. Its many facets lend themselves to all who would help themselves for their particular needs. Each one may filter out for himself that which is essential to him. Our chief object is to in- crease our capacity for perception. The degree of accomplishment determines the caliber of the Artist. —Charles Sheeler I grew up pretty much as everybody else grows up … and one day I found myself saying to myself … I can’t live where I want to … I can’t go where I want to … I can’t even say what I want to … School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting the way I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted, as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn’t concern anybody but myself … and that was nobody’s business but my own … I found I could 339 Chapter 26 ➤ The Artist’s Life say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say in any other way … things I had no words for. —Georgia O’Keeffe My aim is to escape from the medium with which I work. To leave no residue of technical mannerisms to stand between my expression and the observer. To seek freedom through signif- icant form and design rather than through the diversion of so-called free and accidental brush handling. In short, to dissolve into clear air all impediments that might interrupt the flow of pure enjoyment. Not to exhibit craft, but rather to submerge it, and make it rightfully the handmaiden of beauty, power, and emotional content. —Andrew Wyeth An artist must paint, not what he sees in nature, but what is there. To do so he must invent symbols, which, if properly used, make his work seem even more real than what is in front of him. He does not try to bypass nature; his work is superior to nature’s surface appearance, but not to its basic laws. —Charles Burchfield There was a long period of searching for something in color which I called a “Condition of Light.” It applied to all objects in nature, flowers, trees, people, apples, cows … To under- stand that clearly, go to nature, or to the Museum of Natural History and see the butterflies. Each has its own orange, blue, black, white, yellow, brown, green, and black, all carefully chosen to fit the character of life going on in that individual entity. —Arthur Dove The Art of Drawing It does not bore me to write that I can’t paint a pawtreet [sic]. On the contrary it is the great- est joy in life—but I prefer writing it to you rather than the lady, if you will be good enough to tell her that I have retired from the business. Tell her that I now only paint landscapes and reli- gious decorations, that I am a waltzer to delirium tremens or whatever you think may make her congratulate herself on her refusal. I really am shutting up shop in the portrait line. John Singer Sargent I like to seize one sharp instant in nature, imprison it by means of ordered shapes and space relationships to convey the ecstasy of the moment. To this end I eliminate and simplify, leav- ing apparently nothing but color and pattern. But with these I attempt to build an organic whole—a canvas which will stand independently. If I capture too some of the beauty, mys- tery, and timelessness of nature I am happy. —Milton Avery . colors from warm to cool. Try Your Hand To learn about color, make your- self lots of small tonal charts for the colors you have. Try for gra- dations of tone in an individual color to see what it. from painting the way I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted, as that seemed to be the only thing I could do. thing is to store your work somewhere where it will be kept in its natural state: flat. In addition, you’ll want to keep it away from damaging sun rays and—even more damaging—water, so next to the